Author's Note: Thank you for reading my first Loki fic! I hope to make this a pretty big ongoing series with lots of appearances from other Marvel characters. At its heart, Fall from Grace is meant to be a romance story, but with a lot of fun, adventure, drama, and even tears along the way.
I'm not quite sure how adult this fic will get, so for right now, it's rated T. Judging how tense things get in chapter 5, that will probably change sooner than later.
My hands are shackled in familiar chains. The guard over my mouth hides the smile that tugs at the corners of my lips. Two guards, in their gold plated armour, walk in step with me while I approach the throne where my father sits.
Odin's disapproving glare only makes my smile grow wider. While my latest plot was foiled once again, the chaos it brought to Asgard makes it all worth it. That, and how royally furious my not-so-proud papa looks as he glares down at me.
The arrival of my adoptive brother is the only thing that makes my grin slip. Tormenting him can be a delight, but there is no annoyance or anger on his face. No, the only thing on Thor's chiseled face is resigned disappointment. It is the same expression my mother used to give me after I upset her, and to see it on his face nearly shatters me.
Not that I'd ever let him see that.
Odin's voice booms through the room. Beyond the guards that shadow me, my brother, and Odin himself, the room is empty. His heavy, thunderous voice bounces off the walls and reverberates through my body.
"Loki," he growls at me, and my amusement picks up again. "How many times do you think we will put up with your scheming?"
I almost laugh at his question, as it's so obvious he wanted me to answer. The guard over my mouth makes that impossible, so I do what I can by mocking him with my bright green eyes.
"Mock all you want," he snarls back at me. "But this is the end of your plots, your destruction, and your madness."
How many times have I heard that before? I try to take over Earth, and get myself locked up in a cell until I get myself out. I blow up part of Asgard and find myself right back in that same cell. This time will be the exact same. I'll get out again and perhaps this time I'll take another crack at earth. Let Thor and Odin have this realm, and I'll have my own to play with.
"I know your tricks," Odin says, but his voice is no longer a snarl. It's faded into a long, tired sigh. "We simply cannot risk another escape."
For the first time in longer than I can remember, I worry. Father angry is amusing. But tired like this? It's not something I'm used to.
"Father?" Thor asks. His concern mirrors my own, which only worries me more.
"My original sentence was death," Odin says, his normally booming voice is hollow and full of shame. My heart clenches in my chest at his words. I can get out of it, I'm sure, but it's still worrying.
"No, it's too harsh!" Thor steps in. Despite our differences, my brother, my foolishly loyal brother, is my one defender.
"It is not!" Odin snaps back at him. "We give and we give to you, Loki Laufeyson." He uses the name of my father, my true father, just to make the sting run deeper. "It is no matter to you. You want more. It's never enough. You won't stop until you've snuffed out every life that stands in your way."
"Father, Loki will do his time, with our guards -" Thor protests, but Father will have none of it.
"With our guards, he will escape again," Odin tells him.
He is not wrong.
"No, I will not remove your head from your shoulders," Odin relents. "Your mother, may she ride valiantly in Valhalla, would never forgive that. No, the only acceptable means of keeping you far from the people you would otherwise hurt is banishment."
"Father!" Thor protests again, but I only smile to myself. Banishment is nothing. There is nowhere in all the realms where I can't make my mark and cause a little chaos. Wherever I go, I will find my way to rule.
But Odin doesn't listen and I hide the amusement in my eyes while I'm led to the Bifröst. Heimdall waits to open the bridge while I salivate at the idea of the realm that I will soon get to conquer as my own.
"Loki Laufeyson," Father booms as Heimdall opens the gates. "For your grievous crimes in this realm and in others, you are hereby banished from this realm and all the nine realms."
Wait, all the nine realms?
"Take your quarrelsome, power hungry ways from our world," Father continues, a touch of sadness echoing in his booming voice as he speaks. "Perhaps in a dimension without magic and Asgard, you will find some humility."
'Without magic?' I want to ask, but the guard over my mouth prevents it. I search the large, cavernous dome from my brother, but he is nowhere to be found. It is just Odin, Heimdall, and myself.
Trembling claws of dread begin to slither up my arms, my legs, and across my spine. This is no ordinary punishment, and the forlorn look in Heimdall's glimmering eyes as he plunges his golden sword into the gates is enough to confirm it for me.
The rainbow bridge erupts from the gates. My father's hands, still strong as stone despite all his years, clamp down on my shoulders. With the magical cuffs that bind me, I am powerless to resist him as he pushes me toward the bridge.
My feet move forward against my wishes. The tips of my boots slide onto the crystallized rainbow of the Bifröst. My mind races as I step forward, but all my thoughts freeze in my mind as lightning crackles up from the bridge. Thunder roars around me as static dances over my skin. This is not normal, this is not the Bifröst I've travelled so many times before.
Something is truly wrong.
"Loki Laufeyson!" Odin's voice rolls on the cracks of thunder. "You are hereby banished!"
With a mighty strike of electric energy, fire spreads through my veins. My black hair stands on end and pain envelopes me as my body is ripped apart from the force of it all.
And then everything goes black...
Total silence surrounds me...
Horrible silence...
...
Blinding red light burns my eyes. Clattering crashes fill my ears with sound. My pants are... My pants are wet?
Blinking my eyes open, I gaze up at a harsh, hot sun beaming down on my face. Admittedly, I'm relieved to find I am not dead.
As my eyes adjust to the light, I force myself up on my hands. Sinking into the earth, I quickly realize that it's not just ground I'm on, but sand. Fine, glittering sand that runs through my fingers.
The cuffs.
It's that moment that I realize they are gone. Discarded and being lapped at by the incoming tide of the sea or ocean that is making its way up the shoreline.
They aren't the only thing that's missing. The heavy guard that had been pressed so hard against my lips is nowhere to be found.
It makes perfect sense, of course. My bonds were held together by Asgardian magic. If this truly is a realm without magic like Father promised, then they would have no power here.
Then I would have no power here.
Picking myself up, I dust the sand from my clothes. The leathers I'm used to wearing are gone, replaced in the rough spun gaol clothes I've grown all too accustomed to during my periods of incarceration.
Out of instinct, I will something a little more appropriate to cover them, but nothing comes. I try again, but there is nothing. The glimmer that feathers its way through my veins that I'm so used to is mysteriously gone. Without it, I feel... I feel...
Empty.
"No," I growl. "No!"
Odin hadn't lied. My magic, the magic my mother taught me, the last piece of her that I had left, is gone. I try to summon an illusion, a ball of light, a damn whisper of wind, and nothing comes to me.
It's gone.
Rage overcomes me. The void sunken in my chest is filled with the white hot fire of my anger. In my rage, my fingers find a tangle of driftwood that has washed ashore near me. Without thinking I tear into it, leaving nothing but splinters in its wake.
At least my strength has not disappeared.
But strength has never been my weapon. My magic is my strength, and my wits.
In that moment, I remember I am not lost. My wits are my true strength. They will get me home, and they will free me from this horrible, magicless place.
The sand falls off of my clothes as I march off the empty beach. A new determination seethes through me as I storm my way toward the buildings that edge the beach where I woke. I will find my way back to Asgard, and I will prove to Odin that no trap, no prison, and no dimension can hold me.
Insignificant humans stare at me as I march down the side of their paved street. Their gazes mean nothing to me as I move forward without looking back. I will get my revenge on Odin, and then if I feel like it, I will take over their pitiful world. Perhaps make it a refuge when the stress of ruling Asgard begins to get on my nerves.
My focus is straight ahead with pure determination. A magicless world is one thing, but if there was a portal that could bring me here, there is one through which I can leave. Through my studies, I know the earth's weaker points for travel. I will find a way to bend the portals and make my way home.
I am so focused that I nearly miss the sign on my way past the row of buildings. Brightly coloured pictures line the glass windows and my eye catches on a picture that is oddly familiar.
"It is impossible," I whisper to myself as I gaze at the image.
My visage, drawn with a crude hand at best, stares back at me from Odin's throne. Thor's name is scrawled in some amateurish imitation of Asgardian lettering across the picture, but it is crossed out with red ink resembling blood. The number one is painted beside my brother's name.
"What in the nine realms is this?" I hiss at the image.
My focus shifts and I need answers. I storm into the building that houses the image and find a startled, chubby man behind a counter covered in the images of my greatest foes. Captain America, Hawkeye, and that infernal green ape glare back at me from flimsy, glossy parchment.
"What are the meaning of these?" I demand as I examine the pages.
"Dude, comics?" he answers in a dimwitted amusement that matches his gaping, open mouthed expression.
"Comics?" I press him. In a world without magic, how can they know me? How can they know my brother?
"Comic books?" he chides and I desire to strike him down, but the pained memory of my missing magic haunts me. "You know, funny books with superheroes? Fiction, dude."
It is worse than I could have imagined. In this world, I am not only without my sorcery, but I am...
...Fiction.
***original image for cover from - ***original image for cover from - ancidrainbow1 on tumblr*** ***